Fallout 3 - Interview @ IGN AU

July 5th, 2008, 18:21

The ubiquitous Peter Hines pops up at IGN AU for an interview, which asks some good questions for a mainstream site. The general thrust is on trade-offs and finding the right gameplay balance. Here's the opener:

IGN AU: What did you learn from making Oblivion? What didn't work?

Pete Hines: There's no giant 'we can't ever do that again' stuff. It's more how do we design quests, what kind of choices do we let the player make, how do we account for things we think the player might try and do and anticipate those? So that they're like 'Oh, I wonder what happens when I do this?' And then there's actually something in the game that acknowledges it and takes it into account. And they go 'that's really cool that I got to finish this quest in a really unique way and the game recognised that and gave me a satisfying response.'

In Oblivion the most extreme example is the bandits, who's armour keeps going up and up as you're playing through the game. Suddenly they've got glass armour and amazing weapons. It was an obvious thing that didn't feel right. So we've spent a lot of time on making sure that the player has the ability to go where they want and do what they want, but to also provide them with situations where they're getting in over their head – so they've got to leave and come back. Or they're getting into situations where they're further through the game and their character is really tough and they get in there and they kick ass and feel like a bad ass for a while because they've spent a lot of time buffing up their character.

Lying to yourself is one thing, but what makes him believe that we're going to believe that tripe? I'm all for innovative ideas, but they really need to start off as "good ideas" first. Bah, I fell for the bait, again. There's not one thing left unsaid about this game that I'm clever enough to come up with here.

Off-topic: why ppl take the word of Bethesda about don't use isometric engine on fallout 3??? they say that this kind of engine is oldstuff (see diablo 3) and 1st person view is the future is just to cover the true, they really don't have other option, they have to stick with the oblivion engine because Bethesda company was not going to invest in a new engine when they already got one with tool set and everything, they just need tweak it.
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The basis of Oblivion is a modified Gamebryo engine, which has been used for Civ IV, Freedom Force and Sid Meiers Pirates!, among many, many others - clearly, they could do an isometric view if they wanted.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
The basis of Oblivion is a modified Gamebryo engine, which has been used for Civ IV, Freedom Force and Sid Meiers Pirates!, among many, many others - clearly, they could do an isometric view if they wanted.

In fact, Fallout 3 does allow you to zoom out into (near-)isometric view. But as with Oblivion, it is unoptimized: your aim is still in the center of the screen, and you shoot there, and for VATS and conversations it'll automatically zoom back into first person.

3rd person over the shoulder should be usable for most of the game. Further zoomed out definitely isn't. But yes, that's a choice, nothing forced upon 'em.